1. Field of the Invention
This invention is related to the field of digital systems and, more particularly, to interconnecting various components with a communication fabric.
2. Description of the Related Art
Digital systems generally include a variety of components that are interconnected by a communication fabric. The fabric permits the components to communicate with each other to accomplish the operation of the digital system. Exemplary digital systems include computers (e.g. laptops, desktops, servers, workstations, etc.), mobile devices (personal digital assistants, cell phones, smart phones, etc.), special purpose devices (global position system (GPS) devices, music players, etc.), devices embedded in other products (e.g. systems in cars), etc.
Complex systems often include multiple interconnected components with different communications requirements and potentially multiple levels of interconnect in the communication fabric. Designing the fabric to support all of the components and achieve a specified level of performance in such environments is complicated and error prone. Decisions such as the width and speed of various interfaces in the fabric, bandwidth available to various components, structure of the fabric, buffering in the fabric, etc. must be made. Often, these decisions must be made with incomplete information as to what the correct decisions would be. As a result, the communication fabric is either overdesigned (wasting resources) or underdesigned (failing to achieve the desired performance or even impacting the ability to realize functionality) in many cases. In some systems, predesigned fabric circuits can be used to realize the communication fabric. The limitations of the predesigned circuits can also affect the ability to achieve the performance goals of the overall system.